


stay

by museme87



Series: jonrya prompt fills [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 02:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12695292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/museme87
Summary: Jonrya Prompt: Post reunion, Jon being hit over the head with the fact that he's not the only man who sees that Arya is beautiful. Maybe wildlings are flirting or making dirty jokes idk. (Bonus points for oblivious Arya.)





	stay

They’re all going to die.

It’d been a realization that crept in like cold to the bone and had lingered for a sennight—a heavy, foreboding, silencing fog stopping up the lungs, but offering the mind a certain clarity. They were all going to die. This winter would be an eternal one. The White Walkers would win, and if they were lucky they might be put to fire before the dead called them to rise again.

Jon doesn’t know how it had happened, or when, only that it had. The heaviness that had spread through the camp had eased only a little, but enough for _this_ to start. Drunken revelry, laughter, easy smiles—things that had no place in camps during war. But, Jon reminds himself, this is no _war_. This is not Aegon’s Conquest, not the War of the Five Penny Kings. Not Robert’s Rebellion, nor the Greyjoy. A certain death makes men to queer things, like celebrate and feast on what little was left of their stores, and Jon hadn’t the heart to deny them when he was leading them into doom.

It’s troubled Jon. It _troubles_ him _now_. He was not designed for lordship, let alone a crown. Yet here he is—King in the North, Crown Prince of the South—around a campfire, staring longingly at the flame like it was a lover’s face while his men told bawdy jokes, slapping one another on the back and remembering times that were warmer and kinder.

One laugh—loud and feminine—pulls him from his own thoughts. It’s a balm to his pained heart, her laugh. And familiar—beautifully, wonderfully, impossibly familiar. He lifts his head to search for her, finding her at the next fire over with a group of wildlings and Northerners alike. She’s telling a tale, her arms gesticulating wildly, and it has them in tears it is so amusing.

He can’t help but smile, though it has nothing to do with what she is saying and everything to do with _her_. Arya has returned to him, his little sister, safe and sound and _grown_. The years do not trouble him as much as what they’ve done to her. He fears the truth of what had happened to her, of course. But what makes him even more afraid is the woman she has become.

She is a _beauty_.

Oh, Arya has always been beautiful to him. He can’t recall how many boys he had hit in his youth who had called Arya ugly in his presence. _He_ had seen it when she was barely walking. When she had fallen in mud puddles near the stables. When she had stood next to Sansa, whose beauty eclipsed even those great ladies in the songs. 

But _Arya_.

The woman she is now is someone even _he_ could never have dreamed of. And it both makes him proud that finally people see her for what he has always known her to be, yet hurts his heart to think that this newly found admiration for her is because she is so very sweet to look upon. People can now see what has always been there.

And it makes Jon _angry_. With protectiveness. With fear. With _jealousy_. Because Arya is his, and he is hers. It’s been that way since they were children, and it is not fair that things between them have become so complicated when they finally have one another back. Briefly, Jon wonders if it’s he who has made it complicated with these feelings he knows, but does not want to name. A smile, a touch on the arm, any little form of acknowledgment and he stirs for her.

Jon tries to ignore it. Instead, he focuses on the faces in the firelight that look up at her. She has no shortage of male admirers, some more forward than others. With a few, he has considered sending them away to Tormund’s command, but so far Jon has not made the order. Perhaps it’s better that there’s someone—or plenty men, he supposes—that stand between them so that he does not act on his urges. And she deserves to be admired, to be looked upon as they look upon her now—like she is the cleverest, fiercest, most beautiful woman in all of Westeros. Like she is _loved_. Even if she cannot see it for herself—and she can’t, not with the way she dismisses his concerns—she deserves all of it and more, especially now.

When she lifts herself up on her toes and stretches her neck to make eye contact with him from across the fires, Jon realizes he must have been staring at her a little too long. The joy alight on her face makes his heart skip a beat and soon he feels his shame acutely. He offers her a pathetic little wave in return, and Arya seems like she might move to join him.

 _Stay_ , Jon thinks. _Stay and enjoy how they worship you, little sister_. _I have nothing but dishonor to gift you now_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, y'all! 
> 
> Heads up: I have a sideblog for Jonrya: jonryatrash.tumblr.com, and sometimes I open my askbox up to prompts. Also, I'll probably be changing main blogs soon if you follow me over there at museme87. 
> 
> If you also read Winter's Queen, I'm still working on it. Life and (likely) impending surgery has made it difficult to write lately, but I got another chunk written the other night!


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